Installing Ubuntu on Laptop

[Liam Proven]

On 9 May 2014 02:25, Peter Goggin <petergoggin at bigpond.com> wrote:
> I have several laptops running windows  7 or XP. I want to convert them to
> run Ubuntu.  I have all the systems backed up to external disks. I want to
> use one as a test bed. I want to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7 so that
> I can test and compare the fuctionality of the Ubuntu equivalent to the
> windows applications running on it.
> I have a Ubuntu distribution disk. I can run  ubuntu in test mode (no
> changes to windows). When I try to install it I cannot see any option that
> lets me install it in parallel with the windows7
>
> I remember from many years ago a program called Grub was used to control
> dual booting. However as I get older I seem to be able to recaqll less and
> less details  (To date me my first computer program was written in Mercury
> autocode and I developed lots of data logging systems using CP/M and Z80
> micros, nowadays I am much more familiar with large data base systems then
> the nuts and bots of system installations)
>
> Any help, especially simple step by step instructions would be gratefully
> received.


You just run the installer.

When it comes to the disk partitioning stage, what I personally do is:

* Shrink the Windows system partition so that it is 50-75% full.
(Before starting Ubuntu, I empty all Windows' temp directories,
disable hibernation, empty the bin, run `CHKDSK /F` on all drives, and
defrag them if there is time. Then, from the Ubuntu live media, before
repartitioning, I remove PAGEFILE.SYS and HIBERFIL.SYS if they are
still there. Windows will recreate these every boot, anyway.)

* Make an extended partition (if it's an MBR disk)
* In that, make: a root partition of about 16GB for Ubuntu.
* then a partition of all available space less (2 x physical RAM) for /home
* then on the end a swap partition of 2 x RAM

Then continue.

Pick the 16GB partition as /
Pick the big one as /home

Continue.

At the end, voilá, dual-booting system.

-- 
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